The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. In order to provide easier or faster information transfer and convenience, hardware and software improvements for electronic communications devices are continually released. Hardware includes the physical components of the electronic communications devices, and requires software including written instruction codes providing hardware settings that configure the electronic communications devices, to function as required in a communication network. It is currently typical for hardware and software enhancements to be delivered together, since a new hardware release typically requires a new software release at the same time. Thus, hardware and software are highly coupled such that hardware release dates are aligned to the release cycle of software, which is typically about a one year cycle. Accordingly, there are limitations on the ability of a manufacturer to release new hardware. However, certain conditions may arise for which it may be advantageous to release new hardware independent of the software release cycle such as, for example, bug fixes, replacement of end-of-life components, cost optimization, etc.
An example of the problem described above may apply to situations where a hardware improvement for existing hardware is desired. For example, if a new hardware release for an existing Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy (PDH) interface unit for a transmission node is developed, the old software, which normally includes information providing the data for hardware configuration and the means for hardware configuration, may not be able to configure the new hardware. Accordingly, there is a gap between the old software and the new hardware that prevents proper configuration of the new hardware. For this reason, the new hardware would typically not be released until compatible software is developed, thereby limiting expansion or improvement of the existing system until a release date of the compatible software.
Given the above described problems, there is an existing need to decouple hardware settings from software, in order to increase flexibility for hardware release dates and improve the ability to expand wireless and mobile networking technologies.